Congress defends Rajiv Gandhi’s posthumous betrayer Chidambaram

P Chidambaram, his son Karti and the former mainstays of INX Media – the alleged murderous couple Peter and Indrani Mukherjea were being raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation as this report was being written.

The current raids pertain to case – huge amounts of shady money transferred into a media outlet once headed by Peter.

The Congress Party called a press conference in Delhi and termed the raids political vendetta.

Here comes a very important question. Is the Congress Party so vociferously defending the members of the Chidambaram family aware that the Harvard don senior counsel had posthumously betrayed former and late PM Rajiv Gandhi, who also was the President of the Indian National Congress?

A chronology of events indicates exactly that.

Some 20 days before the announcement of Prabhakaran being declared killed in action, through NDTV, Chidambaram gave Prabhakaran a virtual clean chit.

“We do not wish Prabhakaran ill. Instead of extraditing him to India to try him for so-called crimes, we should negotiate with him to solve the Tamil issue,” Chidambaram told NDTV news anchor Barkha Dutt on April 28 2009.

The Government of Sri Lanka announced its army had killed Prabhakaran on May 18 2009. It added it had DNA reports to prove that the body in its possession, as displayed on televisions across the world was that of the terrorist Prabhakaran. One of the news outlets to put out the story was NDTV.

Rather strangely, the DNA fingerprint report proving the identity of the body that was purported to be Prabhakaran was never handed over to the Government of India.

On February 1 2010, P Chidambaram indicated to the news agency IANS that such a report was never given. Operative excerpts:

“The CBI has told me that they have received documentation from the government of Sri Lanka confirming the death of Prabhakaran,” Chidambaram said while presenting the monthly report of his [home] ministry. He did not elaborate.

Some 4 months before announcing Prabhakaran was dead, the general leading the Sri Lankan army said Prabhakaran may have escaped from the island.

On January 19 2009, the then Lankan Lt General Sarat Fonseka [1] told the Australian newspaper Sydney Morning Herald that LTTE boss Prabhakaran may have escaped to India. Operative excerpts:

Sri Lankan government troops have almost completely cornered the Tamil Tigers in their north-eastern jungle base and the rebels’ leader Veluppillai Prabhakaran may already have fled the island and could have escaped by sea. “He may have already fled in a boat,” Fonseka said.

On May 19 Jyoti Thottam wrote in the international news weekly Time said something else. Excerpts:

“When the troops opened fire, the van [carrying Prabhakaran] tried to get away, but it was also hit,” said another high-level source from the military. “The vehicle caught fire. He was killed with two others inside the vehicle. Prabhakaran is said to have come under attack as he tried to drive out of the battle zone in a small convoy of a van and an ambulance along with several close aides.”

Prabhakaran was one of 18 top LTTE leaders killed in the early-morning ambush, the government [of Sri Lanka] said.

In a report published on July 18 2010 by India’s premier news agency Press Trust of India [PTI], Chidambaram virtually gave Prabhakaran a clean chit:

“Slain LTTE leader V Prabhakaran would have been the uncrowned monarch of the northern and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka. Prabhakaran was not our enemy. We were only opposed to the path chosen by him,” Chidambaram had been quoted as saying.

Under Chidambaram, the Union Home Ministry told the TADA court in the outskirts of Chennai that it had withdrawn the international red corner notice against Prabhakaran 19 months after the announcement of Prabhakaran having been killed – in December 2010.

The media got wind of it later.

Bizarre truths emerge from excerpts from a report published in The Hindu dated November 24 2012.

Thirty years after LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran and rival Uma Maheswaran exchanged fire at Pondy Bazaar, a city court has formally dropped charges against the Tamil Tiger supremo on the grounds that he is dead.

Recently, the CBCID police filed a petition stating that Prabhakaran was dead. It also submitted a report from Interpol about his death in May 2009. Perusing the petition filed by CBCID, VI Additional Sessions Judge N. Kaliamurthy said, “Accused Non-bailable warrant pending. The charge against A-1 (V. Prabhakaran) abates.”

It can be safely assumed that Prabhakaran’s fingerprints were taken in 1981. In 1986, Prabhakaran was fingerprinted at Indira Nagar Police station in south Chennai during Operation Tiger [2].

If Prabhakaran was killed on May 18 2009, did India insist on clinching fingerprint evidence from Sri Lanka to be sure that he was dead as he was wanted in India for serious crimes?

This question was never asked by any section of the Indian and/or foreign media.

The Lankan regime had Prabhakaran’s parents within its clasp when it claimed that the LTTE chief had been assassinated. [3]

DNA fingerprinting could have easily been done if the body paraded on Indian television channels on May 18 2009 was that of Prabhakaran.

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On May 28 2009, a news item published by America’s Fox News raised further doubts. Operative excerpts:

Sri Lanka’s military said it has proved conclusively through DNA testing that Tamil Tiger chief Veluppillai Prabhakaran was killed last week, after supporters refused to believe a government video showing the leader’s dead body. Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said lab tests compared the DNA of the man they believed to be Prabhakaran with that of his son, who was also killed in the fighting, and proved that the body was the rebel leader’s.

The surest way of establishing the identity of a person is to compare the DNA of 3 generations. Prabhakaran’s parents were alive and within the reach of Lankan regime long after the so-called assassination. There are no reports indicating that their blood samples of the parents of Prabhakaran, Prabhakaran himself and his son Charles Antony had been used to establish the DNA beyond doubt.

India has fingerprints taken from Prabhakaran in the 80’s.

If a comparison of the fingerprints in India and those of the body found and paraded on May 18 2009 was done, that deed remains a secret.

In this context, a report that appeared in Lanka’s Daily Mirror on February 23 2010 points to another serious ambiguity.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in India has asked the Sri Lanka government to provide more documentary evidence about the death of LTTE chief V. Prabhakaran, the prime accused in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case of 1991.

Prabhakaran is said to have been killed in the third week of May 2009 while fighting government troops. His death was formally announced on May 19.

India had subsequently asked for a death certificate from Sri Lanka so that Prabhakaran’s name could be struck off from the list of accused in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

The Sri Lankan foreign ministry had recently handed over a Colombo high court document — and not a death certificate — to the High Commission of India (HCI), confirming Prabhakaran’s death. It was a report compiled by the defence ministry here on the assassination of Sri Lankan foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar. It stated that the LTTE leader was killed near the Nandikadal lagoon on May 19. The report claimed Prabhakran’s death was confirmed following a DNA test.

Rather curiously, the report does not say anything about a DNA fingerprint report.

Obviously, if the Lankan regime had given foolproof evidence of Prabhakaran’s death, the Government of India needn’t have asked for more documentary evidence of Prabhakaran’s death.

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The telling questions:

1. If the CBI had presented Chidambaram with a report saying that Prabhakaran was killed in action, who was the author of that report?

2. What did it exactly say?

3. What evidence was presented in support of the report, if such a report exists?

4. If the evidence had indeed been provided, why was such evidence not tabled in India’s parliament?

There are no indications of such evidence being provided to India’s parliament.

The Congress had pulled down the IK Gujral UF regime on November 28 1998 over the issue concerning the role of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. Operative excerpts from the New York Times dated November 29 1997 authored by John F Burns:

A judicial report published earlier this month linked the group to the assassination in May 1991 of Rajiv Gandhi, a former Prime Minister who was campaigning as Congress Party leader when he was killed at rally in a small town in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

A report by M. C. Jain, a judge appointed to investigate the killing, said the Dravida Progressive Party and its leader, Muthuvelar Karunanidhi, were complicit in the Gandhi killing because of the group’s policy of “assisting and encouraging”’ the Sri Lankan rebels. The party governed the state of Tamil Nadu at the time.

5. Would the Congress party now ask one of its own leaders – Palaniappan Chidambaram to reveal as to what actually happened to Prabhakaran?

In the light of today’s raids, one isn’t too bothered as to whether Prabhakaran is alive or dead.

The main issue is about betrayal.

The original question asked at the start of this article:

Is the Congress Party so vociferously defending the members of the Chidambaram family aware that the Harvard don senior counsel had posthumously betrayed former and late PM Rajiv Gandhi, who also was the President of the Indian National Congress?

Is P Chidambaram posthumously betraying former and late PM Rajiv Gandhi and shaking the very foundations of the Indian National Congress to which he belongs?

If Chidambaram’s statements are to be construed as posthumous betrayal of Rajiv Gandhi – to whom the former ‘recount-MP’ from Sivaganga owes his political career – will the Congress continue to defend the indefensible betrayer?

If Chidambaram had the irrefutable evidence that Prabhakaran was killed on May 18 2009, would he provide them at least now? If not, would he be hauled up for lying to parliament several times on that issue as Home Minister?

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[1]

Fonseka retired from the army with the rank of General in 2009. He opposed Mahinda Rajapaksa in the 2010 Presidential election as the common opposition candidate. He was defeated. He was declared a political prisoner soon afterwards and remained so till 2014. He supported Maithripala Sirisena in the 2015 Presidential election.

Sirisena granted Fonseka a full pardon, reinstated military rank and decorations, later promoted to the newly created rank of Field Marshal on 22 March 2015.

Since February 9 2016, Fonseka has been made a Member of Parliament. On 25 February 2016 he was elevated to hold the rank of a cabinet minister and placed in charge of regional development.

There are reports that militant Tamil groups and individuals based in Tamil Nadu propose to indulge into violent activities and might even attempt to cause physical harm to the security of Shri Jayewardene, President of Sri Lanka during his forthcoming visit to Bangalore from 15th to 17th November, 1986, in connection with the SAARC Summit (.) It is requested that suitable instructions should be issued to the Police and security authorities to ensure very stringent security arrangements for the Conference particularly for the protection of the President of Sri Lanka (.) Watch should also be kept on the likely movements of Sri Lankan Tamil militants and their sympathisers towards Bangalore from now onwards till the end of the Summit (.) The Intelligence Bureau is being requested to furnish details of Tamil militants and other extremist groups to Director General of Police (.)”

Operative excerpts from the affidavit of K. Mohandas filed upon request to Jain Commission that went into the conspiracy that led to the killing of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi:

Link:

Excerpts from the interview given to Shobha Warrier published in rediff.com on December 9 1997:

Operation Tiger was slated for the early hours of November 8, 1986.

The plan worked, resulting in the seizure of large quantities of sophisticated armaments and ammunition worth about Rs.40 crores (approximately Rs.120 crores in today’s international market) from militant groups spread over Madras city and 10 districts.

This was done without firing a single shot or spilling a drop of blood.

Taken by surprise, the militants including the LTTE supremo Veluppillai Prabhakaran appeared at the respective police stations, mostly of their own accord. They were photographed and, in some cases, video graphed so that we could have a head-count and identification for the C.I.D. files. As the orders were only for disarming them, they were not arrested, but let off after questioning. The whole operation code named ‘Operation Tiger’ lasted only 4 hours i.e. from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. on 8th Nov, 1986.

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